If there’s one law when it comes to Facebook watching, it’s that there’s no good idea in social media that Facebook won’t eventually imitate. Hence, the news that Facebook will be turning Instagram into Instavine is, perhaps, not a big surprise.

Facebook is having an event on the 20th to announce a “big idea” a “small team” has been working on, and some believe that it’s going to be an attempt to replace Google Reader. Which, while certainly interesting (and there are some indications that it’s coming), is not really a “gather the press” type event. No, the signs point to something a bit more visual. If you look closely, there’s evidence Facebook has been working on this for a while: Vine was blocked from the site for “replicating its core functionality,” even though Facebook had nothing like Vine at the time.

Currently it’s believed the service will be offered through Instagram, will allow videos between five and ten seconds long, and there’s no word on applying any filters. Possibly Facebook is weighing the technical considerations and difficulty of rendering video filters against the fact that putting a grainy Super-8 filter on footage of your baby is cheesy and cliched, for the love of God.

Considering how quickly Vine has spread, it’s not a surprise Facebook is looking to put up a service, ah, inspired by it quickly. But it seems an open question whether users will embrace it, especially if the only difference is how long the videos run. That said, enabling more videos like this: